Closing the Cases
by Ishvallan
Summary: Time can be like fire, especially when people start playing with it. So naturally there are people there to fight the fires, find the sources, and contain the damage. The case file of Maxine Caulfield is finally ready to be wrapped up, the last flames snuffed, now to deal with the wreckage. Rated low despite themes, if you've played the game, you encountered worse.
1. The Final Choice

Closing the Cases

The storm raged on, the twister nearly touching the shore of Arcadia Bay. Max stood at the edge of the lighthouse cliff, butterfly picture in her hands, with Chloe watching from behind.

Nothing happened.

Max looked at the picture and knew the feeling of using her powers as she did so, but nothing was happening. She turned around to Chloe just as a man she'd never seen before came running up the path towards them.

"Stop, stop with the picture, don't use your rewind again. I need to to listen to me Miss Caulfield."

"What the fuck is going on, why aren't my powers working, how do you know about my powers, and who in the HELL are you?"

The man caught his breath at the top of the hill. He was wearing a grey suit with a white button up dress shirt underneath and shoes which appeared a cross between dress shoes and boots.

Breathing heavily, he spoke through heavy inhales after his run up the very long hill through the storm.

"Man I'm tired of this speech but it should be the last one. Maxine Caulfield, my name is of no consequence as we're required to give a generic pseudonym anyway. I am with an organization which has similar abilities as you have, but significantly greater understanding and mastery. It is our job to address people with these anomalous abilities and rectify their mistakes. I am here to inform you- ok this is way too loud out here, can we actually get into this lighthouse?"

The man walked around the building, found a door, and found it locked. He pulled out a set of lockpicks and in moments the door was open.

"If you ladies don't mind, I would much rather finish up this case in some kind of shelter and this is about all we've got right now."

"Ok mister time cop, if you know anything about what is going on here, you should know damn well that we're not going anywhere with any crazy stranger." Chloe yelled, standing between Max and the strange man.

"Miss Price, it has been one hell of a week cleaning up your friend's mess. I just want to get this done as cleanly as I can and go home. If you recall, every single bad thing which has happened to you in the past week, or in Miss Caulfield's case several weeks, has happened because of someone you personally knew and frequently interacted with, not because of strangers. Strangers seem to have been the only people who DIDN'T cause any problems. Now please if not for my sake than for your own, it is pouring down rain and you aren't going anywhere, your powers don't work like that even though you think they do. Just come out of the rain and I'll explain."

The two girls looked at each other with concern, but Max walked into the lighthouse past the man followed by Chloe who didn't take her eyes off of him.

The man closed the door behind them but did not lock it. There was not much inside, a bench and a plaque on a wall with the history of the light house.

"Ladies, you might as well sit down. This shouldn't take too long to explain since there isn't any more work I can really do here."

The man lit a cigarette, offered one to Chloe who declined, and continued his explanation.

"Where was I? Oh yeah, I'm here to inform you that your powers are creating disturbances in the Time-Space continuum and it is in yours and everyone else in existence's well being if you cease using them altogether. They do not go away, you do not erase the timelines that you rewind out of, and every time you use your powers you create a new tangent timeline which continues on with you and the consequences of your actions in it. More specific to your situation, your powers are not the cause of this storm, the solar eclipse, the snow, or the dying animals, which I expect will be a relief to you but will raise just as many questions. I assure you one of our associate departments of unnatural phenomena is looking into it, they will be visiting you in a similar manner that I have and am currently doing and will inform you of any explanation they find. I have had to give you these explanations so many times and answered so many of the same questions, I'll just put the ball in your court. What questions do you have right now, I'll answer them as well as I can but I make no guarantee you'll be happy with what you hear, so be careful not to ask anything you can't handle the truth of."

"God, um. Why didn't my powers work out there?" Max asked.

"They did. I hope that was the last tangent universe we have to deal with. When you use your powers, you more or less copy your brain at the time, jump to a newly created timeline and implement your current knowledge to that past event. It doesn't erase the line you were in, in each line you had a similar issue asking why your power didn't work. You had to live out that timeline as though you didn't have powers anymore. You aren't changing anything in that timeline, just creating a new one. And from the file I've been putting together you've got hundreds of tangents. By the way, I don't want to come off like I'm mad at you. You haven't done anything wrong, you're not in trouble, and at least right now in this timeline you're not in any danger. You just used your ability a lot more than other people and happen to have been in the single most disturbing and traumatic set of experiences I have ever had to clean up after. I know from a lot of speaking with you and those around you that you always tried your best to help people and to do the right thing. Though there are also a lot of timelines where people are not happy with the choices you made. But most of the time you're an honest hero Miss Caulfield."

"Max, just call me Max."

"You usually do say that. But like I said, you were constantly at least trying to help others, we wish you could have succeeded more often than you failed, but no one could blame you being in a situation you didn't know what would happen doing your best to be be helpful."

"So, like, there are times people died even though I saved them?"

"Are you sure you want this answer?"

Max thought a few moments. Chloe, Kate, Mr. Madson, all the people during the storm, even herself. She'd failed to save so many people though she tried over and over again to do so. If what the man said was true, she had actually created more deaths than saves, some people dying multiple times before she could manage to save them once.

She shook her head, she didn't want to hear what she already knew.

"Are there any timelines where I actually saved everyone?"

The man put out his finished cigarette.

"You, no. Me, yes, as least as far as we could. Time is a chaotic thing and we can't control everything. Every timeline where you went back to before Mr. Price's death except the one where he survived and Chloe got hurt, relatively few as they were, we stopped him from getting in the car, and were able to inform the police about Mr. Jefferson far before he ever came close to Blackwell. In theory we saved a lot of people thanks to you in those lines. All the girls he hurt, Kate, Rachel, even Nathan ended up better off because we knew about his situation before things got too bad. Those are your silent hero lines, where you didn't have to do anything but live a happier life. We can't know for sure what happened, but we left our people in those lines long enough to ensure Jefferson was captured and prosecuted, Nathan got real help away from his family, and even Frank Bowers got locked up before he could poison the school. We can only speculate what happened after our jobs were wrapped up."

Max and Chloe both felt huge reliefs.

Chloe spoke up emphatically. "So you're saying there is at least a chance at one timeline where me, Rachel, and Max are all ok and hella best buds all bound for stardom? Maybe where I didn't end up a vegetable or a trainwreck?"

"We can hope but unfortunately I can't make any guarantee."

"We'll take it. So much shit must have gone down in those other times these little victories are the only silver lining." Chloe was incredibly relieved just to think that in a few realities, Rachel was ok and the scum of the town got what they deserved.

"Um, what. What causes people to get these powers? I thought I got mine in order to save Chloe, but it doesn't sound like there was anything like fate giving it to me. It just kind of made everything worse," Max quietly asked.

"The day I have an answer for that and we find a way to stop it is the day my whole department gets to quit this job and live a normal life. I really haven't the faintest clue, it just happens. We do know that trauma sets it off, we think the powers already exist in people and don't appear until something forces it out. For you it was Chloe being shot, for me it was just falling off a ladder. Wouldn't have been too rough of a cleanup if you only did it once and let it go. Once we got the call about your case, we got back to that first timeline, stabilized Chloe, captured Bowers, Jefferson, and Prescott, even got Kate's video taken down and helped you connect with her. Easy and clean. But you got that hero thing in your brain and it really took off. Again, no blame on you, you couldn't have known. You ask me I say you did what was right most of the time even if some of the more self centered members of our team wish you'd just stopped playing detective."

"So what happens now? The storm is still going on out there, isn't there anything we can do to stop it? Or maybe save some people?"

"We already saved everyone we could. We tapped into this line as soon as you came into this timeline and started a full region evacuation. We can confirm at the very least Chloe's parents, all your schoolmates, and most of the people you've met are being relocated inland right now. The Bay will probably be leveled, but at least people are alive. Can always rebuild or move, can't bring back the dead once they're dead. You know, you've tried."

"I want to know about Jefferson, you said you caught him in a bunch of the timelines. What happens to him." Max was angry thinking about him, especially knowing there were a lot of timelines where he either severely hurt or killed her.

"Figured you'd ask. I don't know for sure how you'll take it but I would guess you'd be happy to hear it. My organization lives outside of normal jurisdictions. Wouldn't say we have the right to do some of the things we do, but we do them anyway. Most of the time that sick son of a bitch is dead. The world doesn't have any need for someone who has to kidnap and torture people in the name of art, everyone is better off without him and removes the innocent until proven guilty crap that lets guys like him walk free."

"What about in this timeline? Is he dead or at least in jail?"

The man hesitated but told them the truth. "He should be, as long as my partners got their part of the job done before the storm hit. We'll know soon enough. I'd have done it myself but my job is to be here explaining the situation to you. This line and the last one you just made are the two worst, where you've experienced everything of your trauma. We wanted to make sure you wouldn't have any more problems from this situation. You've seen enough for more lifetimes than you created."

"So what happens now? Sure you said the people are safe, but the town is probably gone. Should we just keep living here? Should we go live somewhere else?" Chloe asked.

"I'd say you should call your parents, Max, let them know you're ok. Leave out the obvious stuff, more trouble than it's worth, believe me. I can drive you guys to the evac point once this storm dies down and we can reconnect to your mom and Mr. Madsen. What you all choose to do is up to you for the most part. But I do have one final thing, basically an offer for you Max."

"Let me guess, join your time unit thing?"

"That's the long and short of it. We'd need to explain everything a lot more and train you to understand the impacts your powers make on each timeline you enter and how to use them without hurting yourself or making things worse. It's not much, it's a job. Its an emotional one, pay isn't great, but it's enough to get you by in each reality you step in. You can live whatever life you want in each reality, maybe change it up knowing you're a scientist in one life, an artist in another. There will always be timeline jumpers, might as well make use of them to fix the new ones' problems. If you're interested we can answer any more questions later. If not, just for the love of all existence never use your powers again so I don't have to open your file again."

Chloe narrowed her eyes and glared at the man. "Why shouldn't she get use her powers? Its part of her body, it's up to her what she does with it. What are you gonna do if she wants to use them to have fun now that the crazy is over?"

The man in the suit looked straight at Chloe with a stone face. "I believe I mentioned something about not asking questions you don't want to hear the truth to."

"Chloe, calm down. I'll consider the offer. For now, I just want everything to be over and try to do something normal with my life. I just want to see everyone is ok."

"Sounds like that storm may finally be gone, so we can-" the man looked outside the door, "Nope. We'll be here a while, second half of the storm is just hitting the bay now. I guess now might be a time for more questions or any ideas to lighten the mood while we wait it out."

"For everything that doesn't make sense, there's still something that hasn't had any answer for now. You said none of the natural stuff, not even this storm, had anything to do with my powers. So why did I see the storm in a vision before I ever used my powers?"

The man spun around from the door with a face in shock. "You what now?"

Closing the case suddenly just turned into a long night. In his head he thought "That's paranormal science for you, always something new you didn't know was real."


	2. One Good Ending

A thirteen year old Max stood with a smile on her face, she had finally done it. She delayed William just enough that he survived his ordeal and had returned safely with Mrs. Price. Max attempted to use her powers to return to the point in time she had traveled from, but nothing happened. She reached out her hand but she went nowhere. Her nose felt like it might start to bleed if she tried again, but her focus was interrupted by a knock at the door.

William answered it and an unknown man stood in front of the doorway. He wore a grey suit was holding a shiny badge. William called for Max, the strange man said he was here to speak with her.

"Good morning, Miss Caulfield. I'm with a minor branch of the FBI. I am here to privately discuss certain matters with you. I believe I would be correct to assume that the Prices wouldn't allow you to ride away with a stranger and without consent of your parents before we have our discussion. But I'm sure you can understand that the subject of what we need to discuss is not something you are ready to explain to everyone. Rest assured Mr. Price, no one is in any trouble or danger right now. This is just to speak with her about a gift she has we have learned about, and to discuss some options for her future. I'm sure you understand that given my department, the discussion will be classified, but you are not under arrest, subpoena, or any such legal complication."

The adult Prices were unsure how to respond but Max walked forward and motioned for the man to bend over so she could whisper to him.

"Is this about my powers?"

"Yes, this is a preventative discussion so that my department and I can begin preventing multiple events for the benefit of you and those around you."

She spoke aloud, "Its ok, I know what I'm doing. William, can you drive me home so he can talk to my parents before I go talk to him? I already know what this is about and its something I really don't think I can talk about to anyone else. I just need you to trust me."

No one knew what to do, so William, Joyce, Max, and Chloe got in Wiliams car. They drove to Max's home with the man and his stereotypical black 4 door sedan which one would expect of any government agent. When they got to Max's house, she called for her parents and explained that she needed to go talk with the agent about something secret she couldn't tell them about just yet. Again she asked everyone to trust her that she knew what she was doing. Her parents signed the release he pulled from inside his jacket to clear her to speak to him without supervision.

"Mrs. and Mr. Caulfield, I want you to know that you are welcome to follow me to my office. You will be permitted for Max to be finished with our discussion and then she will be free to go with you, no questions asked and no strings attached. You just will not be permitted to sit in on the discussion, nor to be aware of anything discussed unless Max decides to have you or others informed by my department, or to do it herself. Under normal circumstances she would be bound to classified secrecy about the discussion, but given the nature of the situation, we will be permitting her to make choices about what to divulge."

Chloe and her family returned home, and the Caulfields climbed into their mini van to follow the man in grey. They arrived at a small office building about an hour away, they checked in at the front desk, and Max followed the man into what she expected to be some form of interrogation room but seemed more like a business conference room.

"Well Max. I want you to know that this is the end of the road. This is my very last stop in your case. My organization, and every member in it including myself, have similar abilities as you have experienced. I need to make one thing very clear- whenever you attempt to use your ability, it works. It may seem like it doesn't, but it does. You just have to finish living out this timeline while a new you with all your current memories lives out a new timeline you have created."

He began what felt like a tiredly rehearsed and repeated explanation of how her powers functioned, and how he and his colleagues had been "cleaning up her mess". However it was obvious that there were many details he was leaving out. He never mentioned Rachel Amber, which she just knew was somehow involved in everything which was happening to her. He didn't discuss Nathan Prescott much except what she already knew.

"Do you have any questions? I need you to understand that there are answers I will be hesitant to give, and some answers you probably will be better off never knowing."

Too many questions, but one stuck out from earlier. "You said that I have a choice about who I tell about all this. Does that mean I can tell people I have powers? I get that you don't want me to use them ever again, but can I at least tell people I have them?"

"I would highly discourage doing so, but I will tell you that this one time we are allowing it. Max. This is what we are calling your 'happy ending'. This is the farthest back your timeline goes that we can interfere in. And frankly this is the timeline I'm effectively retiring in. This is the one that I'm going to stay in and safeguard. There are things coming in the future which you probably don't want to know about because this version of you will never have to experience them. I want you to live your life happy. I want you to stay friends with Chloe. I'm going to break just about every rule my organization normally has just to give you the happiest timeline possible because of how much you have seen and lived through in every other line. Frankly this line is as much about my satisfaction as it is about your happiness."

"What kind of stuff aren't you telling me? Did you ever find Rachel? What is going to happen to Mr. Madsen if he doesn't marry Joyce? And what about that psycho Nathan? Is he the one behind Rachel disappearing?"

"Take this as your only warning. If you want me to tell you, I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything. Even things you would never have known because the events of your situation extend years before you ever discovered your powers. But I promise you that you will not like what you hear. You will probably get sick, cry, and beg me to stop, which of course I will as soon as you ask. I'll take the kid gloves off and hit you with truth like the worst timeline you've ever experienced didn't learn. And if you want, I'll even tell you what I'm going to do after this meeting concludes." He leaned back in his chair and awaited her answer. Either way he had a lot of work to do in the next few months to prevent tragedies he knew could come, and even more work to monitor everything and everyone in the Bay to ensure that no tragedy befell his final project.

Max thought for a short while about the way the man had explained this. "Do it. Fuck me up, sir. Don't hold back."

The man cracked his knuckles, pulled out a note pad from his jacket, and laid down an astonishing tale.

\- How saving William and using her powers led to Chloe's accident in another timeline, leading Chloe to beg Max to kill her.

\- How the events of that caused her to return to this very day to ensure William did die.

\- Explained how in this timeline it may be necessary for her to intentionally ignore Chloe if she wanted to minimize the changes of events in this timeline- to ensure the meeting of and bonding with Rachel Amber as it had in near all alternate timelines.

\- Explained how Chloe came to become the woman Max knew from her older years, how she connected with Rachel. Explained the drama of Rachel's birth mother, the woman's kidnapping and Chloe's attempted rescue, even how Frank Bowers rescued both Chloe and the woman from a man Max had never heard of.

\- Detailed the interactions of Chloe's life and friends which Max never even heard about.

\- Explained how David fit into everything in the Chloe's accident timeline as well as all other times when he married Joyce, painting him generally as a good person with poor decision making.

\- Explained that Nathan was a product of his father and teacher. He was not acting in the way that the boy could have if his upbringing had been healthy.

Max sat mostly quietly through everything until this point. Something about this didn't seem right.

"What teacher, sir? You never mentioned anything about that."

"Oh boy, this is the big one. Um. One moment." He stood up, pulled a small garbage can over to where Max sat, and sat himself again.

"At the end of the chain of blame, your teacher Mr. Jefferson is the cause of much of the problem. What happened to Rachel is an accident made by Nathan, but only because of Jefferson."

"What are you talking about? Sure he didn't help Kate much when she went to him, but he's not a bad guy or anything."

"That's something you would have found out if you returned the next day when you returned. The thursday of that week, you find where Rachel is buried. Yes, she's already dead in your main time, overdosed on a drug that Nathan gives her which I will explain." He hesitated for a bit but decided to continue. "As soon as you find her buried corpse, Jefferson shoots Chloe in the head, drugs you, and then the nightmare really starts."

"Bullshit, he would never do that to us!" She stood up slamming the table with her open hands.

"Everything I'm telling you is 100% fact Miss Caulfield. The day after you return, you and Chloe are able to trace clues until you find a barn owned by the Prescotts. You two go there and find an underground storm shelter, wherein you find camera equipment and binders of women who have been drugged and photographed, one of which is the binder of Rachel Amber."

Max dry heaved a bit and pulled the bin up to her lap, but coughed words out telling him to 'finish it'.

"Mr Jefferson had been abducting women for years, photographing them in states of helplessness, drugging them to keep them from knowing what was happening or remembering the incidents, and releasing them back otherwise unharmed into society. He was doing this for years. He never dated anything or wrote incriminating notes so with the best research we have been able to do, his crimes date back to about 1 year from now. He has to our knowledge not yet started his crimes, but we will be preventing them from ever occurring."

"What about Nathan? You said he killed Rachel."

"Mr Jefferson was using him. He recognized that the child was being abused in many ways by his father, and took the boy under his wing. He became a mentor to Nathan and manipulated him and his family to create the Dark Room where he taught Nathan about taking the photos down there. If anything you can have some peace that to all our records none of the women were violated beyond being kidnapped, drugged, and posed. One night Nathan tried to do the process on his own with Rachel, but he gave her too much of the drug and it killed her. Jefferson found out and they hid the body together. Where you found it is something I refuse to tell you under any circumstances. You will never be able to find out. It will never happen in your current lifetime."

Max vomited into the can and screamed "It was the junkyard wasn't it. Right where everything keeps happening to me and Chloe. That god damed junkyard!"

"Well, that's that then, you'll just have to deal with that knowledge now."

She cried a while and the man sat silently. When she could no longer throw up anymore, she asked him about the things he planed to do now.

"Unfortunately that's not the end, so unless you ask me to stop explaining I have a few more things to tell you."

Her eyes widened and her stomach quivered in pain from the wretching, but she decided against her instincts. "Do it. I think I know whats coming and if you can promise me that I'll never have to experience it for real, I'll take it."

This girl had a fortitude he hadn't expected. So she would have it her way. "I'll spare you some of the details which frankly don't matter at all, but I'll tell you this- your powers led to your death a lot. I mean a lot. Until you found a way to survive. And actually its David who ends up saving you. He finds you and Chloe's board in her room and follows it to the Dark Room and after, well a few failed attempts which don't end well for you or him, he finally managed to get the best of Jefferson with your help. There are a few timelines where David kills Jefferson for killing Chloe. Frankly I don't blame him for those timelines, nor do I blame you for creating them, going back in time just to see that bastard die over and over."

She sat there stone faced now, like she was just hearing but no longer able to react. If 'shocked' ran on actual electricity, then her batteries were completely drained.

"Well after that you either got to see your town destroyed and dealt with the fallout, went back to new timelines to try to save the town which never go very well, and one final decision. For some reason you got it in your head that you needed to either sacrifice Chloe by going back and letting her be shot or sacrificing Arcadia Bay by staying with her. That last decision is the timeline I just came from. It was your last timeline you used you powers. So now we're just at this one. The one where William lived and none of the bad has happened yet."

"So what," she gagged a bit, "what are you going to do now? And what should I do?"

"Now I do some dirty work. I need to find Sera and get her cleaned up early, maybe let her be a bigger part of Rachel's life at some point. Gotta figure out how that's gonna go. I'm gonna remove Damon Merrick from any and all equations. Legally would be ideal but whatever has to be done at this point. I need to find out how to rehabilitate Bowers into a good citizen since he's already a decent person real deep down. Jefferson is never going to get a single victim if I can get to him in time. I think he's priority one just in case. Other than that, its up to you, kid. Rachel will move here in a few years, you can all get to know her early on. I can try to get her mom in the picture. Get the drugs and violence off the streets of Arcadia Bay. Oh yeah, I need to get rid of Mr. Prescott as soon as I can. I'm sure I'll find something on him to get him put away. Find a way to get Nathan into a good home where he can grow up to be a decent person. I don't recommend telling anyone any of what you know. Not even a therapist. I'll be in and around the Bay probably until some day when you three girls decide to move away from this little patch of hell. So once I set up, you'll be welcome to stop by my office any time you need to talk, with your parents permission of course. You can take this knowledge and get the three of you together early. You can stay in touch with them when you move away or maybe even convince your parents to let you stay in the bay since you'll have the Prices to stay with, or maybe even the Ambers. Choices are yours, just don't cause any problems and don't get in too much danger. And do NOT under Any circumstances ever use your powers again. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal, sir. I trust you. Do what you need to do, and I'll try not to cause you any trouble. I just want everyone to be happy and safe, and I think you do too."

"Well, now you do have an idea how badly I want that. To the point that I'm risking the fabric of time and space just to see you three grow up and survive to be old enough to drink."

Max stood up and apologized for the mess in the can, but the man waved it off as expected. She and the man left the room, he shook her parents' hands and said that she would be just fine and no one had anything to worry about, he just believed Max had a bright future ahead of her, especially if her family could get her a decent camera, though he didn't explain why.

That was the last time she ever saw the man, at least up close. She never felt the need to go to him, never saw what he did in the background. But she did get to meet Rachel two years later when she moved to Arcadia Bay, got to meet Sera when she came to meet Rachel for the first time. She saw the news articles for Mr. Jefferson and for Damon Merrick's arrests about a year apart from each other- somehow entangled in a mutual drug running scandal which she knew from the man's description never existed. And she got to know Frank who worked alongside David Madsen as the security guards for Blackwell Academy, for which all three girls had scholarships paid for by an anonymous donor.

Once in a while she would see the man on a street, at the Two Whales, at a school function. He was always watching, but letting them have their lives. She never waived, never said anything, she just lived her life and that was all he wanted.


End file.
